1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a vending machine arrangement which is designed to increase the flexibility of product storage and distribution therein.
In greater particularity, the subject invention relates to a vending machine for selectively dispensing or vending several different types of products of generally cylindrical configurations, such as products in cans or bottles. More particularly, the invention is concerned with providing improved flexibility for accommodating a given number of products within a limited available storage space, allowing a greater number of at least one preferred product type to be stored and vended, without a decrease in the number of different products available to be selected for vending.
In prior art vending machines, the individual product capacities are generally predetermined by using steel walled columns in the inventory section of the vending machine. By combining columns, bottlers can increase specific product capacity. However, when columns are combined, then the number of products available for selection is proportionately decreased. The present inventive concept allows product capacity to be increased or decreased in smaller increments than is presently possible, without any consequential loss of product selection.
2. Discussion of the Prior Art
The organization of the various essential elements of a product dispensing or vending machine is, in a practical context, influenced by a number of sometimes conflicting considerations, including efficient utilization of the space available for the storage of products to be dispensed, the reliable control over the releasing of individual products from storage upon demand, without vulnerability to either fradulently induced or mechanical malfunctions causing the dispensing of more than one product during each dispending cycle, and providing appropriate means for guide products during feeding thereof from storage to the product dispenser in a manner minimizing vulnerability to jams, and preferably utilizing gravity as the sole force required for accomplishing such feeding of products.
As will be apparent, a maximum number of products can normally be stored within a space of given volume by utilizing the latter essentially as a box or open hopper, with the products emplaced therein in interengaging random fashion. Such an open hopper approach to the storage of products to be mechanically dispensed, however, has been found to be highly vulnerable to the creation of jams as the stored products move toward the lower extremity of the hopper during the successive dispensing operations, and it has also proved difficult to provide a product releasing mechanism for use at the lower end of such an open hopper which is capable of reliably dispensing products stored thereabove in essentially random fashion on a successive individual basis.
Accordingly, over the years, it has become most common to provide some form of product guiding or/and supporting structure within the product storage space available in dispensing or vending machines, for the purpose of preventing the type of jamming problems that can arise with open hopper storage, while preferably accomplishing this in a manner that requires the interposition within the storage space of a minimum amount of guiding and support structure, which occupies a minimum portion of the space otherwise available for the storage of the products themselves.
Prior art vending machines typically offer a consumer a selection from several different varieties of products, such as different flavors and varieties of canned soft drink beverages. Heretofore, such selective machines have most commonly employed a plurality of side by side stacked arrangements of products within corresponding chambers extending throughout the height of the available product storage space, with each serviced by its own selectively operable dispensing or releasing mechanism. That type of arrangement, has indeed, proved entirely satisfactory for applications in which it is intended that each of the selectively available varieties of product will be handled by the machine in essentially equal quantities.
However, it is recognized that the tastes of consumers utilizing a vending machine as a source of products such as canned soft drinks, will not result in statistically equal selections of the various varieties of products offered by the machine. On the contrary, each kind of product will generally be consumed in quantities different from that of any other product variety offered through a given machine during any given period of typical operation. In recognition of the biased nature of consumer demand in favor of one or a small number of the product varieties commonly offered through a single dispensing or vending machine, the common prior art solution has been simply to dedicate a plurality of the individual stacked chambers and associated releasing mechanisms to the dominant or favored products, with the remaining products each being serviced by only a single such chamber and dispensing mechanism. Although this approach permits product variety preferences of consumers to be in some measure accommodated, such solution has been less than fully satisfactory because of the difficulty of providing both an adequate number of selections and an appropriate mix of the respective quantities of each of the product varieties to be made available through a particular machine. For example, assuming a vending machine with ten stacked chambers of equal height across the width of the machine, each of such chambers accommodates ten percent of the total products receivable within the product storage space of the machine, which marks the minimum percentage of the storage space to be devoted to any particular product variety to multiples of ten percent, and would also result in a commensurate decrease in the number of product varieties dispensed by the machine.
Craven et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,245,755 is of particular interest to the subject invention as it addresses the same general problem as that of the present invention, namely allocation of product storage space in a canned beverage vending machine between major and secondary products. The approach taken therein is illustrated clearly in FIG. 2, wherein secondary products are vended from the left vertical columns, a favored secondary product is vended from the second-from-the-right column, which has access to a major portion of the product storage area. Pivotally mounted gates are employed during delivery to direct the major product cans from several storage shelves to the right vending column. The present invention provides a much greater flexibility of product storage and distribution relative to this prior art approach.